Sunday, July 20, 2008

Black Butterfly

It was our 28th wedding anniversary yesterday, so I did this as a gift to Steve. The past month or so working on the portrait ended up being a kind of intense period of introspection for me as well. I think this was partly because of completing my White Album series of portraits of my kids, and feeling more like concentrating on myself at last, but it has also been a time of personal growth and transformation.

There were several unusual spiritual moments for me while working on this portrait. One was a near out of body experience while on a walk in the park, which spurred me to write my first poem in 30 years. You can read the poem "Fairfield Avenue" back further in my blog. A few days later, I started seeing black butterflies. Not so unusual in summer I suppose, but I don't remember seeing this particular type in Chicago, maybe it's due to our changing weather patterns. The odd thing was that I had just found a photo of a black butterfly online at RedBubble had favorited it and commented on it. Then a black butterfly fluttered around me several times while I was walking that same afternoon! It happened again a couple of days later, this black butterfly flying in loops around me as I walked. Odd that the only black ones I saw, also seemed to notice me as well! Almost like they knew of my transformation. So, that inspired my second poem, "Black Butterfly" and I decided to incorporate a black butterfly into the drawing.

Just a couple of days ago I came up with a way to add the text of the poem to my work. I used my home printer to print the text onto a letter sized portion I cut from the pink backing paper. After I printed it, I pieced it back together with acid free tape. The mylar film is translucent, so the text shows through in a subtle way.

The piece was made to fit a vintage distressed frame I found at my local antique shop. It is really in a bad way, but I think it suits me - I'm a bit rough at the edges myself these days. But I figured it's now or never to expose more of myself. :)
Steve likes the gift by the way.